TRIBUTE FROM SPARK
(organ of the Workers Party of South Africa)
on the death of S.P. Bunting (1936)

The revolutionary movement has lost a valuable member. But in Bunting South Africa has lost something more than a valuable member, something more than an honest revolutionary. It has lost a leader, a pioneer, a Bolshevik. And the Revolutionary Movement in South Africa, so poor both in quality and quantity, will find it difficult to replace a man of Bunting’s calibre. Such men are rare.

He was one of the first to break not only with the Labour Party, but with Social Democracy; one of the first to hail the October Revolution in Russia, one of the first to form the Communist Party. And as an ardent Communist he had to fight, and did fight, enemies of every possible kind – Imperialism and Capitalism and their lackeys; the Labour Party; anarchists of various brands inside the Communist Party, and last, but not least, white chauvinism. When, moreover, he had succeeded in building up a Communist Party, he was deposed and expelled ... for opposing as unsuitable the slogan of ‘Native Republic.’

Bunting will always remain a living symbol in the South African Revolutionary Movement. For none in South Africa was so beloved as Bunting by the Bantu workers and peasants, who, thanks to him were drawn into the movement. It was they who most fully appreciated his great loving heart, the true qualities of his character, his crystal-clear honesty as a man and as a revolutionary. This is not the time to recall his faults and mistakes. Who among us is faultless and which of us does not make mistakes?

The memory of Bunting will remain with us.